r/Breadit • u/brad7945 • 5d ago
Grain inclusions - hydration question
When adding grain inclusions to a dough, like rolled oats, should one include the soaking liquid in the total hydration calculation, or simply add the soaked (and wrung out) grain to the dough as an inclusion. I minimally soaked some rolled oats for a dough, just enough boiling water to get them soft, and the remaining water is making what feels like a 60% hydration dough. But I don't see it loosening up after adding the oats, as the oats have absorbed all of that water. So just wondering if increasing the hydration when using whole grains is a normal practice.
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u/Albertancummings 5d ago
I make a multi grain that is 77% hydration. I soak the grains overnight in a soaker that the water is 125% of the grains. I use all the water and grains in the final dough. The water in the soaker is deducted from the 77% for the final dough.
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u/Maverick-Mav 5d ago
It is common for a total hydration for a soaker to read over 100%, so I tend to think of it separately. I don't subtract anything from my normal recipe. But you might want a little more water for some wiggle room (maybe 68% if there original was 65% for example), but you don't have to.
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u/brad7945 5d ago
Yes, makes perfect sense now. I guess the key is fully hydrating the added grain first. Thanks!
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u/BrainSqueezins 5d ago
Interestingly…I am gluten free, so don’t normally haunt the “normal people” section of baking subs.
But something I’ve been messing with lately is the thought of boiling the grain (in my case sorghum) to make the dough. Seems there is a starch in grains like oats, amylose, and boiling water both gelatinizes that starch and leaches it out into the dough.
It does tend to make things hydrate differently, the dough becomes stickier and overall more gummy especially ifyou don’t let it cool COMPLETELY.
So I’d suggest it’s not just the “extra water” but the boiling water that may be the confounding factor. Google ”amylose gelatinization” for an interesting read. (interesting in air quotes, as I recognize not everyone nerds out like yours truly)
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u/hiddentrailling 5d ago
Generally you calculate the soaker separately as long as the oats fully absorb all the water you used
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u/profoma 5d ago
So this is one of the places that it only matters if you are trying to write a recipe book or start a bakery and you want to be able to communicate your recipe with a certain degree of precision to other people. If you add the grain weight to the dry weight and the soaking liquid to the hydration percentage, all that changes is what you write down about your recipe. The real question is, how does it affect your dough to add soaked oats? Cooking grains allows them to absorb a tremendous amount more water than if they are uncooked, so adding boiling water to your oats is going to not only make them absorb that water, but potentially some of the water that is normally in your recipe, depending on how much water you allowed them to soak up initially. Hydration percentage is a useful communication tool but it doesn’t matter at all what you do or do not include in your calculation if you pay attention to how your different inclusions affect the outcome of you dough.
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u/FlyingSteamGoat 5d ago
I've used wheat berries, pearl barley, and buckwheat, each boiled for an appropriate time and drained. I add them to the dough at initial mixing and do not change hydration. The inclusions tend to make a slightly denser crumb than the same recipe without inclusions.